


White Bird

by beaubete



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Somnophilia, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:51:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2297213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q offers Bond a place in his home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Bird

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags and warnings. It you are concerned, I've put a fuller warning in the notes at the end; I'd rather "spoil" the end than hurt or upset anyone.

When the Jakarta incident finally finishes, Bond finds himself at loose ends, spinning and lost and ready to buzz right out of his skin.  He drinks, heavily.  Calls one of the three women he keeps in his phone for the purpose and swears when she doesn’t answer, fires round after round into the paper targets at the end of the firing lane until his shoulder aches from the recoil and his flesh is crawling with the need to move.  He swims, stroke after mindless stroke, up and back the length of the lanes until his body is worn, but still his mind won’t stop trembling.  He sinks to the bottom of the pool and stares into the blue of the water until his diaphragm cramps.

He comes up for air just as Q is undressing, folding the last creases into his shirt and bare, scrawny arms covered in gooseflesh from the chill of the pool’s air.  His belt is curled on the crease of his trousers on the bench; he looks like he was about to jump in.

“Good.  You’re not dead after all,” Q says.  He starts to dress again.

And Bond’s not sure why that should make him laugh, but he does, sitting there shivering on the concrete floor with his legs in the water that feels warm compared to the subterranean air.  Q watches him carefully as he does up his tie in a lazy half-windsor, looping it easily with the familiarity of a boy who’s memorised one way to wear it and done it that way ever since.

“No,” Bond agrees.  “Apparently not.”

“Anything I can help with?” Q asks, and Bond laughs again, because he knows Q didn’t mean it—

“No, thanks,” Bond says instead, slumping back to lie on the ground, chest heaving.  

He’s surprised by the soft huff that escapes Q when he sits, trousers rolled to the knee, and dips his feet into the water, too.  “Bloody cold,” Q complains, kicking at the water a bit.

“Yeah.”  

The quiet is cool, companionable, broken only by the sparkle of water as Q swishes his feet in circles.  Bond closes his eyes and feels something settle inside him; he could sleep like this, he thinks.  There’s a word forming in the pit of his stomach, but it waits at the back of his throat instead of coming out, and it doesn’t feel immediate.  He opens his eyes and feels it resting on his tongue, a soft sound of thanks.  

The water splashes and he turns to look—Q is getting out, rubbing Bond’s towel over the places where the water has made the hair on his legs dark.  He casts Bond a sheepish smile.  “C’mon, then.  Get up.”

“What?”

“You’re driving, if you’re staying over at mine.  And you are—staying over at mine—because I don’t want—you shouldn’t—”  They don’t say soft words to each other; they’re barely cordial coworkers at best, but the concern, carefully lined and cautious in Q’s voice, makes something warm touch the contented creature inside of him.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Q asks, almost as if he can’t believe him.

“Okay.  I’ll drive.”  And Q flashes him a small smile of victory, eyes soft and relieved.

Q’s flat out in Hackney Wick used to be a warehouse, and the neighborhood is empty enough that no one will notice his weird hours, or so Q says.  All Bond knows is the run down buildings make him nervous, and the thought of Q taking the bus—taking one of <i>those</i> buses—all the way out here pulls a frown to his face that Q tuts at.  They’re not far from the corner of the Olympic Park, and even two years later he’s still griping about the cheering, the mess, and the traffic as he putters around the kitchen to fetch tea.  It’s too late for caffeine, but Bond’s still surprised by the sweet citrus floral of chamomile when Q hands him the mug.  He shrugs at Bond’s curious look.

“Don’t know if you like it; didn’t care, really.  If you don’t want it, I’ll drink both,” Q tells him simply, and the spiteful sip Bond takes is almost reflexive.  Q grins and it occurs to Bond that he’d planned that.

The flat is, frankly, enormous, more than two thirds of it opened and industrial, with big plate windows covered with bottle glass shades that give the light of the streetlamp outside a stained glass effect, ghostly and acid green.  There’s the kitchen with all the modcons, a workstation that appears to be slowly eating the rest of the room, and a small but comfortable-looking couch in the corner.  Q looks apologetic when he notices him looking.

“I don’t have a spare room, so this is you, I’m afraid.”  It looks nicer than some of the places Bond’s slept before, clean and soft enough, though low to the ground.

“Most hosts would offer their bed,” Bond teases and Q huffs, laughing.

“Not on your life, Mr. Bond.  Sofa or floor.”

“Some comfort,” Bond quips, and for a moment, doubt catches in Q’s eye.  He puts his hand out, suddenly aware that this is the first time he’s touched him; Q’s jumper is warm beneath his fingers and soft.  “Thank you, Q.”

“Think nothing of it,” Q tells him airily.  “No, really.  And speak nothing of it; if it got out that I was kind—”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Bond agrees.

“You can watch the telly out here if you want.  Don’t buy the pornography—I know what kind of information Sky collects on its customers, honestly—but you can watch as many Top Gear reruns as you can stomach.  I’ve got some DVDs around here somewhere if you have a hankering for something that’s not on—I can show you how to work the media server—?” Q rambles, bustling around the area before brandishing the television remote triumphantly.  Bond stops him with a hand on his arm again.

“I’ll be fine.  The noise won’t bother?”

“Not at all.  I’m a very heavy sleeper,” Q assures him.  “Well—”

“Well,” Bond agrees.

“Well,” Q repeats.  “I’m to bed, then.  Good night, Double-oh Seven.”

“Good night, Q.”

His fingertips are still tingling from the warmth of Q’s arm as he watches Q disappear into a door that he presumes is the bedroom.  He wonders for just a moment what it would be like to put the flat of his palm—His shirt is still package-crisp, crackling under his fingers as he unbuttons it.  He’s had it stored in his locker, knowing he’d come back for it after his bloodstained mission, but he hadn’t put back an undershirt, so it’s pants for sleeping in and nothing else.  The door to Q’s room opens again and he turns, taking in the sight of Q’s thin body wrapped in a pair of blue plaid pajamas.  Q freezes.

“I forgot to tell you where the loo is,” he says, and Bond nods wordlessly at the other door next to the one Q’s just come from.  “Oh, you’ve figured it out.”

And Bond remembers now that it’s been a long day for Q, too, filled with adrenaline and fear and quick thinking.  He lets the corner of his mouth soften and curl fondly.  “Go to sleep, Q.  Thank you.”

Q nods wordlessly and disappears into the bathroom, where Bond can hear him brushing his teeth as he hums around a mouthful of suds, the melody tuneless and meandering.  He mumbles off to bed a few minutes later, and Bond settles in.

There’s some awful American cartoon on; he watches half an hour before flicking through the channels and suffering through another, then turns off the telly and rolls away to sleep.  The green light from the window is strangely soothing, but even so it takes long minutes before he acknowledges that that strange restlessness is back.  It’s awful: his muscles feel like lead, but still, he cannot sleep.  He imagines raiding Q’s kitchen cabinets for alcohol, because Q is young enough that Bond is sure he’ll have some, but when he imagines the look of betrayal on Q’s face when he catches him with it, possibly still drunk in the morning and watching cbeebies like the desperately pathetic man that he is, he can’t.  He’s still on the couch—it’s rather comfortable, actually—for even longer before he decides that he needs to piss.

The green light is enough to see by, but his pupils restrict painfully when he flicks on the light.  He gets a flash of dark nearby—Q’s door is open—and drops the switch just as fast, even though only the soft sounds of breathing come from the room.  It takes time for his eyes to adjust again, but when he can see again, he peers into the room at the sleeping lump on the bed, so still and unmoving.  He remembers—“I’m a very heavy sleeper”—but can’t help the way fear, just a trickle of nervousness, sneaks in the side door and catches him around the chest.  He can’t see that narrow chest rising and falling with breath, and he’s slipping into the room before he’s really decided to do so, footsteps careful and slow so he doesn’t wake him.

The bedroom has a large window, too, but only the thinnest yellow light sneaks past the edges of a blackout curtain Q has installed.  His skin has a golden-pale glow in the dark, and Bond can see he’s taken off the shirt he was wearing earlier, revealing a surprisingly lithe frame, limbs smooth and strong-looking, one arm lifted over his head and arched neck to reveal a dark thatch of hair in the pit that makes Bond’s heart thump in the bottom of his throat.  He remembers the heat of Q’s arm under his hand earlier, remembers the urge to put his hands—

Q’s skin is as buttery as it looks, sleek and hot as he traces a line down the length of that delicate-looking neck to the collarbones, out along the ridge to the point of a shoulder and down, sweeping, to an elbow.  He’s beautiful.  His lashes are dark, thick smudges on his cheeks, and Bond gives in to the urge to touch the raised edge of a cheekbone, to brush the furl of an ear with his thumb before kissing the dark moles at the jaw with the pad of it.  There’s something almost indescribably lovely about the tender trust of Q’s sleeping body, and Bond catches himself stroking the line of his carotid as he would a favourite pet, soaking up the sensations of warmth and fondness with slow-moving hands.

Best of all are Q’s lips.  Dark as wine with the lack of light, they’re full and sensual, plummy around a pout that works its way across the bow of his mouth.  Bond touches them gingerly, delicately, and pulls back as if scalded; if anything, it’s this quick movement that wakes Q, leaving him blinking up at Bond owlishly with moonblind eyes.

“James?” he asks, voice crackled with sleep, and Bond steps back.  “Is everything alright?”

Bond hesitates.  He knows he has to say something—he’s woken Q, and each second more lights turn on in that impressive mind—but there’s nothing to say.  Should he tell how he’d been frightened, just for a moment, that Q was dead, or how he’d seen Q’s skin and been unable to resist the urge to touch?  That he’d looked at Q’s mouth and wanted with a hunger that’s still staggering, unlike anything he’s felt in such a long time?  “Nightmare,” he manages, and Q makes a soft, humming sound of sympathy.

“Want me to make you some tea?” he asks, already shifting to toe into the slippers by the bed, pulling the blanket from the foot of the bed around his shoulders like a cape.  Guilt digs its thumbs into Bond and he winces.

“No, I—”

“Rhetorical question,” Q answers easily before leading him into the kitchen.  It’s still dark, the only lights green-tinted street lights and the red LED at the base of the kettle.  “Tea’s non-negotiable.”

He ends up falling asleep on the couch on Q’s shoulder, wrapped in the smell of chamomile and Q’s washing up powder.

He wakes alone, of course.  Q’s gone to work hours ago, the sun is high in the sky, and there’s a note under the kettle explaining that if it spits red sparks, it’s the filament, and therefore safe, but that blue are cause to unplug it and maybe take a short walk before returning to the flat.  He’s fairly certain Q’s taking the piss because he’s added a note rather emphatically banning “just chew[ing] the bloody bag between [his] teeth like a savage or an American”, but there’s a choice between a blue and white scrolled tag of a triangle of Earl Grey from Whittard’s or a simple paper sachet of builder’s tea, each bag laid out neatly on a saucer nearby.  He takes the builder’s, because he’d hate to disappoint.

Q doesn’t seem surprised to see him when he comes home.  It’s late and the curry Bond’s picked up is cold, but Q doesn’t seem to mind as he tears into the chapati with single-minded focus.  Bond makes tea while Q eats, then says nothing as they sidle in next to each other on the couch, Q’s fingers tapping slower and slower at the arm until Bond glances over and he’s actually nodding off, heavy lids melting down to cover sleep-dulled eyes.

“Q.”  Q doesn’t respond; Bond thinks of touching his arm but doesn’t.  “Q!”

“What did I—oh.  Bond?” Q asks, muddled.  Bond sighs, standing, and offers Q a hand up.

“Bed.  You, in it.  Sleeping.  Now.”

“Were there words in that?” Q grumbles, letting Bond manhandle him over to his room.  “All I heard was ‘grunt grunt grunt, I’m a caveman.’”

“And all I heard was you snoring for the last half hour.”

“You lie!” Q hisses, scandalised, and watches as Bond takes off his shoes.  “Planning to undress me completely, dad?”

It’s.  Bond withdraws, pulls his hands in to himself.  He hadn’t noticed, hadn’t realised—Q’s face is soft with sleep and teasing.  “You should close your door tonight, Q,” Bond tells him, and Q pulls a face.  “I might wake you again.  When I—the nightmares—I don’t quite know—and I don’t want to bother you.”

“It’s no bother,” Q tells him.  

“It bothers me,” Bond insists, and Q folds.

“Okay.  But I want you to wake me if you need me.  I don’t mind it.  Really.”

Bond agrees, and Q is fishing in the bedclothes for his pajamas, so he goes, undresses, sits on the couch again.  He hears Q take care of his nightly ablutions—the walls in this flat are abysmally thin, he notes, and wonders if it’s a security measure when one lives alone to be able to hear the faucets in another room through the closed doors—and head to bed.  Three hours later, Bond is still sitting on the couch, watching the blank screen of the telly.

It’s a horrible idea.  Disrespectful, ungrateful.  Q’s opened his home to him, and it’s all he can think of: Q’s skin beneath his fingertips, Q’s night-dark eyes glittering in the stray threads of light sneaking past Bond’s silhouette, Q’s form picked out beneath the sheets.  It’s been three hours, and for all his horror at Bond’s teasing earlier, he is snoring; Bond can hear him, just the faintest huffs of breath through the opened bedroom door.

Because it is.  Opened.  Bond paces, gives in and wanders the kitchen looking for alcohol and finds nothing but Q’s tea cupboard full of kitschy mugs and tins of loose tea.  He digs through the freezer behind the frozen veg and finds nothing, then considers going down the off-license, but it’s late.  He doesn’t have a key and it’s far later than he should be wandering, and if someone got into Q’s home because Bond was off getting pissed, he knows he would never, ever forgive himself.  Could never.

And he’s a man of many vices.  One throttled, the others raise their wicked heads and remind him he hasn’t had a woman, hasn’t—and Q’s skin—It’s not okay.  It’s not acceptable and he hates himself every slow, creeping half-step, but when Q lies vulnerable in the bed below his outstretched hand, even self-hatred won’t stop him.  He makes contact.

Q’s chest is bare again, the duvet rustled and shoved until it’s pooled around his narrow hips.  Bond would suspect him of being nude, but just the edges of a dark green pair of—what? sleep trousers? pants? boxer shorts?—are visible low on his body, low enough to see the trail of hair that drifts between navel and—Bond reaches out, shifts the duvet.  Boxer briefs, then, with buttons at the fly.  Q’s half-hard.

A quiet puff of air escapes Q’s lips when he touches trembling fingers to the skin just above the elastic band.  Even here, he’s soft, brown hair not the crinkled coarseness he’s expecting.  Q sighs, shifting, and Bond glances to make sure he’s still asleep as he touches, gliding his fingers across the slim line of Q’s stomach.  He wants—god, he wants to just—and the fabric is so warm next to his hand, the heat of sleep and blood and sex coming from the thin cotton that’s beginning to tent a bit.  Before he can tell himself no again, Bond touches.

It’s.  He’s touched a cock before, went to public school and knows his way around the secret friendships of boys, but it’s been a long time since he’s grasped even himself like this, just exploring gingerly around the edges to take the shape of it.  Q sighs.  Bond remembers that he’s fondling another man—he’s fondling Q, who’s been kind and considerate, has cared when—

He’s still awake when Q wakes, still sitting in the dark main room of the flat, and when he meets Q’s eyes, he can’t take the pressure of his sympathy.  He’s already dressed, just slips his feet into his shoes and goes out to the shops, mulls around the whiskies a while but leaves with nothing but cigarettes.  He tucks one into his lip and lights it, puts it out.  Lights another, takes two drags and a lap around town to shake the smell off; when he opens the door, Q’s chewing a slice of toast thoughtfully over the morning paper.

“Did you come into my room last night?” Q asks.  A large crumb falls from the corner of his lips, sticks to his jumper.  His throat bobs around a swig of tea.  Bond lies:

“No.”

Q sits, thinking.  There’s butter melting over his fingers.  “You’re bunking with me tonight.”

He will not.  “Why?”

“Because you were up all night afraid to bother me,” Q tells him, and the guilt gnaws Bond’s innards to shreds.

“You snore,” he says instead.

“There you go, telling lies again,” Q replies idly.  “I’ve got a set of spares, if you wanted to go out.  You didn’t have to wait for me.”  He fishes in the sugar bowl for a moment.  The green plastic keyring hits Bond in the chest with a smack.

“Thank you.”

“Smoke in the back courtyard.  I’m trying to quit.”

He means to be gone by the time Q gets back.  He means to be drunk, to have smoked the rest of his cigarettes right there in Q’s bed, to burn through any goodwill Q has left and to force him to throw him out.  Instead, he’s standing in the kitchen growing annoyed; Q ought to have been back hours ago.  Now dinner is getting cold, and—

“You made me pasta.”  The wonder in Q’s voice startles Bond out of his head to see him standing there, satchel limp in his hand and heart—or stomach, at least—in his eyes.  He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks.

“Wash up first,” Bond scolds when Q sticks his hands into the hot pan of bread, but he’s unable to resist the laugh that bubbles up when Q just grins impishly, stuffs the bread in his mouth, and shakes his head.  He spits it out almost immediately.

“Hot!”

“Serves you right.  You’re like a child.”

“You made me pasta,” Q repeats cheerily and Bond offers him a plate for his bread so he can wash up.  

“Had to do something.  I was starting to feel like a freeloader,” Bond says, and Q rolls his eyes.  “What?”

“Fetch me some of whatever it is you bought to drink,” Q commands, bypassing the dining table to go directly to the couch.  Bond raises a brow but offers the wine anyway, and halfway through the meal, Q is visibly pushing himself.

“You don’t have to eat if you’re not hungry, Q,” Bond tells him, and Q shovels a forkful into his mouth defiantly.  “Really.”

“I’m starved,” Q confides, and yes, based on the mouthfuls, he probably is.  It doesn’t change the fact that he’s going to have tomato in his hair soon if he keeps nodding into his chest.

“You’re going to land in your plate,” Bond says flatly.

“He died as he lived: with a spaghetti noodle up his nose,” Q intones, but the jaw-cracking yawn that cuts his laugh in two leaves him ruefully looking at the remnants on his plate.  “I don’t want you to think it’s not delicious, Bond.”

“I know it is.  I made it,” Bond reminds him.

“And so modest, too.”

“You’re falling down where you stand.”

Q starts to speak—a snappy comeback, Bond is sure—but yawns again.  He looks annoyed by that, his own body giving him up.  He settles for, “C’mon, then,” and Bond freezes.  “I call nightstand, since I need somewhere to put my glasses, and since it’s my fucking bed, I win.  Which means you’d better be in place when I turn the lamp off, which means you’d better hurry, because I am going to sleep for a million years.”

There’s no way out of it; some small, secret part of Bond is glad of that, knows that’s why he stayed, why he followed the rules: tonight is another opportunity, isn’t it?  He feels sick.

By the time he makes himself enter Q’s bedroom, Q’s already undressed for bed, the familiar green pants soft and loose around his cock.  Bond can no more stop the words than he could bite his own tongue out: “Won’t you be cold like that?”

Because Q’s flat is comfortable but just a touch too cool, because Q flushes a pretty pink when he asks, because his cock is thinking ahead to the press of bodies together, back to the softened shape of Q’s cock in hand.  “I didn’t think you’d—I mean, yeah, you’ve probably noticed I’m in less….”

“I sleep in my pants, too,” Bond tells him bluntly, reaching up to unbutton his shirt.  Q squeaks and darts for the bathroom, but when he comes back, he’s back to his familiar pajamas, though the top is nowhere to be seen.  The sleep trousers hang almost obscenely low on his hips, and Bond tries not to stare as he’s ushered into the bed.

As expected, Q is out almost before his head hits the pillow.  It takes all of perhaps ten minutes before his ribs are lifting easily in the slow swell of sleep, and this close, his snoring is more of a soft buzzing sound.  The room is dark, but he can pick out the door where the sitting area’s faint green light glows, and for a moment, Bond considers crawling over Q to get out.  He has to get out; there’s a bar open somewhere and he can find a partner, take her back to hers or to a hotel if he has to, a pretty girl or even a pretty boy.  He has to get this out of his system.  He presses a hand on the mattress and starts to lean up.

“Ja—wha—?” Q mumbles, and Bond sinks back to the bed, caught.  Q hasn’t been asleep long enough, of course not, despite the exhaustion that was written all over him when he came in.  “Did you—?”

“Need to piss,” Bond says, and Q grumbles but shifts in the bed to let him out.

In the toilet, he can’t, despite three glasses of wine.  He considers a wank, splashes water on his face instead, and stares into the mirror.  “Get it together,” he reminds himself sharply.  He gets back to bed and Q is out again, and this time he doesn’t move when Bond crawls over.

He’s not going to tonight.  He’s not.  He can see the raised curl of Q’s shoulder where his arm is tucked tight against his front, can see the way his hair curls in delicate little tendrils at the back of his neck, can smell the sleep radiating from him like a very large, contented cat, and he’s not going to touch tonight.  Bond lays a careful foot and a half away and aches.

A chill sweeps through the room, or perhaps just through Bond, and Q shifts, wriggles under the duvet and closer to Bond, and.  Bond’s control snaps with temptation inches from his face; he brushes one hand along Q’s side to cup his ribcage where his heart is racing below his skin and presses his lips to the flesh offered.  His fingers curl reflexively as he holds Q still.

Q’s skin is soft, responsive under his kiss.  Gooseflesh rises, and he smoothes it with his thumb gently, draws his mouth away to breathe heat back into the slightly cooled skin.  He presses another kiss and then another, until the urge to taste becomes too much—Q’s skin tastes like salt, very faintly like soap, like minerals, like skin.  Bond touches the tip of his tongue again and his fingers curl again.  Q shifts in his arms.

“Did you just lick me?” Q asks quietly.  Bond can’t parse his tone, can’t figure out what Q is feeling under his own blinding haze of shame.  He pulls away, rolls to face the wall.

“No.”  His voice is rough, he knows.  He knows, too, that Q takes it for sobbing, slips a hand over his shoulder to pet at the taut muscles of his throat until Bond can sink into the pillow, desperately humiliated by Q’s openness and his own rank desire.  He draws a shuddering breath and Q sidles closer, resting his head between Bond’s shoulder blades.

Q is silent as he gently rubs at Bond’s back, soothing until the quiet tears do come.

Q is a zombie the next day, knit out of pale skin and bruised eyes.  He’s had no valuable sleep since Bond came to stay, and even Bond’s libido feels terrible and guilty for that.  He can’t bring himself to leave, stands in the entryway clenching his fists around the keyring and can’t, still; can’t miss the pleasure of Q’s company, no matter how selfish that makes him.  It does.  Make him selfish.  He knows this.

Q makes a beeline for him when he comes in that night, dropping his forehead to Bond’s shoulder like he needs it to stay standing.  He may do; there’s a fine trembling in his limbs as Bond tentatively wraps an arm around him, rubbing awkward circles on his back.  “No dinner, tonight, darling,” he murmurs, already half asleep standing in the hall, and Bond agrees.

“Let me get you to bed,” Bond tells him, guiding Q into the bedroom.  He doesn’t trust himself to help him change his clothes, doesn’t trust himself to keep his hands to himself, so he eases off Q’s boots and pushes him back into the bed, covering him with the duvet still wrapped in his oxford, though he’s removed the tie.  Q makes dozy attempts to pull off his shirt but Bond stills him, pressing an indulgent—though who’s the one being spoiled here?—kiss to Q’s forehead.  “Sleep.”

He’s on the couch again.  It’s familiar, already homier than the posh flat he’s left sitting empty for the better part of half a week.  It’s comfortable and it smells like Q, a bit like garlic and curry and the time they’ve spent together, and for once, he falls asleep quickly, nose nestled into the afghan on the back.

It’s quiet, the noise that wakes him.  A shuffle, a whisper of fabric, and Bond realises slowly that Q’s awake, apparently refreshed by his nap.  He considers getting up, fetching tea, when a soft moan breaks the still air.

A moan.  A moan, and suddenly Bond’s ears are straining, every muscle down his chest taut as he listens.  If he’s very quiet, if he holds his breath—He’s heard this before.  He’s lived in dormitories and barracks with boys and soldiers, and the quiet sounds are familiar.  Q’s wanking.

He’s quiet, but now that Bond’s ears have picked up on what he’s hearing, there’s no mistaking it.  Q’s breathing in short, sharp little bursts that would almost sound like sobbing if he couldn’t also hear the bedclothes moving, the rhythmic protests of the bed squeaking beneath him.  Bond’s cock throbs.  Q’s pace picks up, and Bond feels as though he may be melting, caught in the heat of Q’s breathy sighs.  If he listens carefully, he can almost imagine the wet slick of skin on skin—does Q use lube to handle himself?  Is his hand wrapped around his cock or are those pretty fingers in his arse?  Bond stifles a groan and presses his hand against his cock.  He wants to see.

“Oh,” Q says.  His mouth is in a perfect circle, Bond imagines, his head tipped back until his hair is brushing the pillows, or else he’s snuggled in tight, piles of soft down around him as he fondles himself.  “Oh,” Q repeats, and Bond squeezes himself through his pants.  Q’s just come, he realises, and the knowledge keeps him up for hours.

The next morning, Q pokes at his fried egg with caution.  It’s his day off and he can linger, and after last night Bond is left feeling nervous, shy.  

“You’ve made me breakfast,” Q confirms.

“I didn’t get much sleep.”

Q is silent, ears pink, but they don’t—Bond doesn’t elucidate and it’s easier to pretend—and Q shovels almost a whole egg into his mouth in a transparent attempt to keep from having to talk.  Bond grins into his coffee cup.

“What do you normally do on your days off?” he asks, and Q chokes, washing back breakfast with a swig of tea.

“Normally, I lie around in my pants and read, or code, or watch the telly,” Q admits.  His flushed cheeks are charming.

“You can, if you like.  Pretend I’m not here or send me out.  It’s your place; I can finally go check in with M,” Bond offers.

“Are you ready for that?” Q asks, and.  Bond knows his own ears are going pink.

“I ought to at least tell him I’m here and safe.”

“Oh, he knows that,” Q says, waving dismissively.  “I told him that ages ago.”  Bond smiles again.

In the end, Q doesn’t strip off, though it’s a very near thing.  He’s back to the pajama bottoms that are too big, and he has the disconcerting habit of draping himself over things: the kitchen counter, waiting for tea to be ready.  The back of the couch, watching the programme with Bond for a few moments as he’s passing by.  The bed, with his feet up and his nose in a book.  Bond’s lap, after lunch, with his tablet and a mindless game on as he hums tunelessly along with the cartoonish music.  Bond is torn between being annoyed and helplessly trying to hide his erection.

In the end, he makes up his mind.  “Get up, you lazy sod,” Bond tells him, cheerfully ignoring Q’s protests as he pushes him from his lap.  “Put clothes on like an actually productive member of society.  I want to go for dinner.”

“Bring me back pizza,” Q demands, already curling into the other side of the couch with his tablet again.

“No,” Bond responds brightly.

“Wanker.”  There’s no heat in it; Q seems to realise what he’s said and flushes, shuffling off to his room before returning a few minutes later, casually dressed.  “You’ve got no room to talk.  You’ve been living in the same clothes since you got here,” he grumbles.

“Ah, but when you’re gone I strip off and wash it all in the machine,” Bond tells him playfully.

“So long as you didn’t put your bare arse on my sofa, that’s fine.”

“No, the bed was fine.”  Q pulls a face and Bond laughs.

They end up having pizza anyway, at a hip little restaurant that boasts a gorgeous view of the river and where Bond feels twice as old as the average guest; Q, of course, fits right in.  They share a pizza with things he’s never imagined on it, but the lager is good and the late evening light touches Q’s hair gently.  He could believe they were on a date, and when Q meets his eye over laughter and the rim of his glass he believes they are.  They might be.  Q is confusing; Bond can’t get a read on him at all.

When he’s had enough of the noise, of the appreciative eyes skimming him to land on Q, of the truly excellent beer that leaves him feeling satisfied and vaguely tipsy, they leave.  Not quite hand in hand, but Q leans close, the smell of cider on his breath as he talks about the workspaces above the bar and how he used to stop in and chat with the artists—he lets slip a name, Paul, and Bond tries not to let his jealousy show.  Q laughs because Paul was absolutely wretched in bed: “Much better with a soldering iron,” Q assures him—and how he’d lived on pizza and beer like a university student the first six months they’d been open.  He’d probably been a good source of financial stability for the fledgling restaurant, the lonely young boffin working his way through nearly every combination of beers and pizzas on the menu before he’d finally decided to try out the oven in his flat.

“I’ll come back with you, then,” Bond offers, and Q’s face lights up.

“Good.  You have to try the stout with the lamb, then, because it’s like…,” Q trails off, mystified.

It does feel like a date, then, when he brings Q home, and for a moment Bond wonders how Q would react if he kissed him by the door.  He doesn’t, and he’s not sure he imagines the slight slump of Q’s shoulders as they enter, but he puts it away.  They pause again in the entrance to Q’s bedroom, and Q smiles.

“Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight.”  Q looks like he may say something and Bond waits, but he doesn’t, just ducks back in to grab his pajamas and hurries to the shower.  Bond strips down and settles himself on the couch again.  He looks up when Q comes back out.  “You’ll wake me if you need something, won’t you?  Anything,” Q offers.  His chest is bare, damp.  Bond nods wordlessly.

And Bond tries to make it through the night without touching.  He does; he has an unsatisfying wank, nearly biting through the pillow to silence his sounds, and rethinks their dinner twice over, but each time his mind catches on the softness of Q’s eyes, on the way he’d laughed when Bond burned his lip on the cheese and the way his eyes had fluttered closed when he wrapped his mouth around the top of the amber bottle.  He can’t.  He absolutely can’t.

Q’s door is open, because he doesn’t understand, because he doesn’t fear, because he doesn’t know about the things Bond wants.  It’s too easy to slip in, too easy to walk to the side of the bed, too easy to shift the duvet and—Bond’s breath escapes him in a rush that sounds loud to his ears.  Q is—Q is.

Q is pale skin covered over with sparse hair, with small brown moles.  Q is long, thin limbs limned with muscle and elegant in repose.  Q is.  He is a blood-dark cock lying sleepy over the stretch of one thigh, he is soft and tender-looking bollocks and well-formed abdomen dusted over with dark hair in an arrow that points to his nudity, and Bond can’t stop the quiet sound of hunger that nearly fells him.  Q is naked, beautifully so, Endymion on the hillside with moonlight kissing his flesh.  Bond’s hands shake when he touches.

Q’s cock is soft, the weight of him surprisingly heavy as Bond lifts him away from his leg, exploring.  It’s beautiful, just beginning to go flushed and ruddy and firm with the attention, and he must—he must.  He’ll leave in the morning, never darken Q’s doorway again, but he can’t not sink to the floor, can’t not take it in hand, can’t not kiss the thin foreskin that protects the head even as it begins to shift back around the aroused swell of him.  He wants fingers in his hair, wants Q’s voice raised in pleasure, wants those bright eyes distant and hazy as he sucks him.  He wraps his lips around the head and sucks.

The response is immediate: in his sleep, Q shifts, spreads his thighs, presses up into Bond’s touch enthusiastically.  There’s a happy murmur overhead and Bond glances up, but Q’s lashes are still closed, eyes still shuttered though his brow is knitting; he backs off and strokes the spit-wet skin until Q settles again, then ducks in to suck a lingering kiss at the base by Q’s bollocks, where the smell of him is potent and rich.

It’s easy to wrap his hands around Q’s thighs, to guide his sleep-blind thrusts and coax him open and splayed before him, to lift one leg over his shoulder until he can see all of him on the bed before him, a feast.  It’s easy to kiss his way up an inner thigh and nuzzle in, much easier than it is to think about the violation, to consider—Bond tastes the dusky valley between Q’s bollocks and his body, tongue flat, and Q shifts; he doesn’t notice the fingers holding Q’s cock to the side until he’s glutted himself on Q’s flavour.  He freezes.

“It’s not the worst way to wake up,” Q murmurs conversationally, and.  And Christ.  Christ.  Bond pulls away, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, and looks anywhere but Q’s face.

“I—”

There really aren’t words.  There are no words for how horrified he feels, how ashamed and—

“Bond?”  Q’s voice cracks the shell of self-loathing; he sounds tentative, nervous.

“Q, I,” Bond tries.  “I can explain.”  He can’t.  There’s literally no explanation he can think of for why Q’s woken with his cock in Bond’s mouth aside from ‘you woke up while I was doing it’.

“Do you have to?” Q asks quietly, and.  And.  Yes.  Bond brushes his mouth with his hand again, pulling back to retreat.  Q wants him to leave; of course Q wants him to leave.  He’s lucky Q hasn’t punched him yet, will be lucky if—“Can’t it just be because you like me?”

Bond blinks, still looking at the floor, the bedding, the window.  Anywhere but Q, but then there are two fingers, solid and gentle and sure on his jaw.  When he lifts his face, Q looks exasperated, sweetly worried, fond.  Fond.  Bond bites his lip.

“Because I do.  Like you.  I couldn’t stand the thought of you going home alone and I couldn’t stand the thought of you going out to cat around, and then I couldn’t stand the thought of you sleeping cold and lonely out in my living room, until I realised that the only place I could stand you being was my bed.”  The words spill from Q’s lips, shy and jumbled and oh, so heartbreakingly sincere.

“It was wrong,” Bond says, as much to punish himself as to remind Q.

“Yes,” Q agrees.

“I should never have—it was inappropriate, and unwelcome, and wrong.”

“Not unwelcome,” Q tells him, and the grin that forms on his face is playful, dirty.  “Never that.  Unexpected, at least that first time, but never unwelcome.”

“You can’t expect me to—”

“—to think I’d normally sleep half-naked in this weather?  I knew it was ridiculous.  Normally I’m all bundled up like an eskimo; another few days of this and I’d have ended up with a terrible cold,” Q interrupts, finishing cheerily.  “I thought I was going to actually freeze when you pulled the duvet back, that my bollocks were going to crawl back up inside and never come out again.”  And he does look chilled; Bond grabs the blanket and curls it protectively over Q’s shoulders.

“Q—”

“You were wrong,” Q tells him carefully.  He sounds very serious.  “You should have never.  It was abusive.”  Bond’s heart plummets.  “—but I wanted it very, very much.”

Bond’s relief is palpable, a tangible thing he can feel as the guilt pressing into his skin is replaced.  He reaches for Q, then pauses.

“May I touch you?” he asks cautiously.

Q grins.  “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains both sexual and non-sexual touching, as well as deliberate sexual contact between two people who have never discussed sexual activity between themselves before, in which one party is asleep and therefore unable to grant consent. It is later revealed that it was not unwanted or unencouraged, and retroactive consent is given.


End file.
